your opinion on the expediency of the measure.  If you approve it, I shall propose to ------ or some other, to father it, and to present it to the counties at their general muster.  This will be in time for our Assembly.  The presentment going in the public papers just at the moment when Congress was together, produced a great effect both on its friends and foes in that body, very much to the disheartening and mortification of the latter.  I wish this petition, if approved, to arrive there under the same circumstances, to produce the counter effect so wanting for their gratification.  I could have wished to receive it from you again at our court on Monday, because ------ and ------ will be there, and might also be consulted, and commence measures for putting it into motion.  If you can return it then, with your opinion, it will be of importance.  Present me affectionately to Mrs. Madison, and convey to her my entreaties to interpose her good offices and persuasives with you to bring her here, and before we uncover our house, which will yet be some weeks.  Salutations and adieu.

LETTER CCXVII.—­TO COLONEL ARTHUR CAMPBELL, September 1, 1797

TO COLONEL ARTHUR CAMPBELL.

Monticello, September 1, 1797.

Dear Sir,

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of July the 4th, and to recognise in it the sentiments you have ever held, and worthy of the day on which it is dated.  It is true that a party has risen up among us, or rather has come among us, which is endeavoring to separate us from all friendly connection with France, to unite our destinies with those of Great Britian, and to assimilate our government to theirs.  Our lenity in permitting the return of the old tories, gave the first body to this party; they have been increased by large importations of British merchants and factors, by American merchants dealing on British capital, and by stock-dealers and banking-companies, who, by the aid of a paper system are enriching themselves to the ruin of our country, and swaying the government by their possession of the printing-presses, which their wealth commands, and by other means, not always honorable to the character of our countrymen.  Hitherto, their influence and their system have been irresistible, and they have raised up an executive power which is too strong for the legislature.  But I flatter myself they have passed their zenith.  The people, while these things were doing, were lulled into rest and security from a cause which no longer exists.  No prepossessions now will shut their ears to truth.  They begin to see to what port their leaders were steering during their slumbers, and there is yet time to haul in, if we can avoid a war with France.  All can be done peaceably, by the people confining their choice of Representatives and Senators to persons attached to republican government and the principles of 1776, not office-hunters, but